Teaching the food truck business

After 26 years in the Air Force, Brigadier General John Michel settled in St. Louis with his wife to look for a new gig. We kind of naively jumped into the food truck business. What we figured out is 80% of food trucks fail in four years.

But where do you learn the food truck business? It's not like there's a training school. So we approached the Department of Labor and said, can we work to build an apprentice program? So we created the first certified mobile food truck apprentice program in America. It's open to anybody. It is free.

So far, he's trained 60 entrepreneurs, but some of the most promising candidates were people who were struggling. They had no money to buy a truck.

So we said, well, we have these trucks. Why don't we just start to put them in your hands? So if we spend $70,000 on a truck, you just pay us back over five years. At the end of five years, we're going to give you the title of your truck.

Growing up, about 13 years old, I lost my dad. So I was kind of lost growing up, just hanging out with the wrong people, doing the wrong things.

Demetrius Gower, known as "Big Meechie," wound up getting arrested for marijuana possession and carrying a gun without a license.

The darkest moment was probably me going to jail. Kind of woke me up and was basically like, you got to do something different with yourself or you're going to keep going down this same road and you're probably not going to come back from it.

Meechie had always loved cooking. Michel's food truck program seemed like a Golden opportunity. How was he as a student? His smile is so radiant and so memorable, and there is a warmth to him, so we became quite fond of him very quickly.

Big Meechies burgers, fries, chicken, and salads were such a hit that he's now opened a restaurant too. There actually is no TV story. I just wanted one of your famous burgers. [LAUGHTER] The awards rolled in.

We won Best chef, best restaurant, best catering, best burger, and best wings. Oh, my god! Yes, sir. Dude.

Yeah. And you're 28. 28. It was super humbling. Yes, sir.

So far, Michelle has launched seven people who'd been going through tough times. Three more will hit the road this spring.

When we look back at our lives and go, where did we spend our God-given talents and energies and passion on? We'll trade off the dollars and trust that we'll do the right thing, build value in our community, and hopefully inspire some other people to do the same.